


Palladium

by Cassie_Thornfield_AmongTheStars



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Comforting Remus Lupin, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Headcanon, Hogwarts Astronomy Tower, Hurt Severus Snape, Hurt/Comfort, I probably missed something, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry, Inspired by Poetry, Kissing, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Canon Compliant, Nudity, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-First War with Voldemort, Remus Lupin Lives, Romance, Sad and Sweet, Sensuality, Severus Snape Lives, Short & Sweet, Smoking, Spells & Enchantments, Young Love, disconnected stories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28737318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassie_Thornfield_AmongTheStars/pseuds/Cassie_Thornfield_AmongTheStars
Summary: "But I ran my finger down its spine when its back was turned"A series of unrelated short stories that focus on one Remus Lupin and one Severus Snape
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Severus Snape
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	1. But I ran my finger down its spine

**Author's Note:**

> I usually write short stories because I tend to use them as captions for my posts on my Instagram account.  
> I'll be highly inconsistent with this little self-indulgent project, but I don't think I'll stop at two...  
> This is my first time posting anything on ao3, even though I wrote my fair share without having the courage to share it.  
> Well, what more can I say? Enjoy!

24 December 1995

The heavy wards washed over him like an ice-cold shower when he Apparated in the dark entrance hall of number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

The damp stench of dust and the sweetish rotting smell hit his senses almost as an afterthought, the old-fashioned gas lamps along the walls sputtered into life with a soft hiss, casting flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper of the long gloomy hallway.

Severus Snape made his way unsteadily towards the narrow staircase, the creaking of the decaying timbers echoing ominously as he climbed the steps on shaky legs: The stuffed head of the house-elves lining the parapet seemed to glare down at him when he stumbled.

The aftershock of the Cruciatus curse still coursed through his veins, making him tremble, his stomach churning unpleasantly as dizziness danced in black spots in his peripheral vision.

The Dark Lord had managed to glimpse few tendrils of forbidden memories from an unfortunate crack in his Occlumency shields, jagged pieces like broken origami swans, smooth like little pebbles in a riverbed, stored in a corner of his mind that Voldemort had never been meant to see, eyes the colour of honey and chapped lips kissed blood red, fingers (slim and pale and scarred) tightening around his thin biceps, clutching at his shoulders, his hips, and nothing more, just a wayward thought of a lover kept unspoken.

Never had Severus let himself be that vulnerable, and that unexpected, accidental mistake could have destroyed his entire world in a heartbeat if graver.

The Dark Lord had had a malignant gleam in his red eyes and a devious smile the likes of a snake as he bestowed his unruffled punishment, but the matter had dropped unaffected after the interminable white pain of the Cruciatus and the vile laughter of the gathered Death Eaters.

Snape reached the landing as if walking in wadding, his feet blindingly guiding him to the only place his hazy mind wanted him into, the only place he could feel a resemblance of safety, of a light in the darkest of nights.

Lupin had left the door of his room wide open, uncaring of Kreacher's nightly wandering, and the worn-out werewolf looked like he had fallen asleep waiting for Snape's return: From the threshold, he could see the pale curve of Lupin's neck, elegant and glorious, marked with a bruise the colour of mauve that Snape himself had left with his mouth just that same morning.

Buried under the heavy quilt and gently bathed in the faint streetlamp glow pouring from the half-closed curtains, Lupin looked older and wearier than his years - there were thin lines around his closed eyes like half-moons, grey in the sleep-mussed hair that fell over his forehead, a worried frown between his eyebrows, the evidence of an uneasy and lonesome sleep.

Severus stumbled into the room, onto the bed, spent and shivering as Lupin woke with a gasp, concerned honey brown eyes focusing on his ink-smeared fingers that were clutching at the bedsheets, and Severus suddenly hated himself for such display of weakness.

The bed was soft and warm, it smelled of Wolfsbane and chocolate and the sweet tea that Remus liked so very much, the tea Snape himself brew thoroughly every evening, and soon a pair of strong arms were enveloping Severus's quacking shoulders in an anchoring embrace that tasted of the moon and the secret scent of love on his tired tongue.

Lupin’s warm fingers twined in Snape's dark, dark hair, a butterfly touch as if he wanted to assure himself of the reality of the other man's presence.

"You're back." the werewolf murmured against his temple, voice groggy from sleep and yet so very gentle, every gust of breath a silent cry of gratitude.

Tendrils of hair fell over Snape's ashen face, eyes closed and eyelashes trembling under his lover’s caresses, and Lupin brushed them back tenderly behind a cold ear.

Neither of them felt the need of spoken words as Remus helped Severus discard his bloodied clothes one item at a time: Shivering from the cold and the last stubborn lingering remnants of pain, perched at the edge of the mattress, he looked strangely vulnerable not draped in layers of black, just skin like milk almost glowing in the dimness of midnight.

Severus, exhausted and worn-out, finally let himself collapse on the bed, its inviting warmth combined with the heat of Remus's bare skin enveloping him in a cocoon of ephemeral yet longed-for safety, his weary head almost sinking in the drapes of the pillow as he breathed in his lover's cherished scent.

Lupin's hand began running on every jutting knob of Snape's spine, as he spooned behind the still trembling man, a slow, deliberate motion, savouring the feel of skin and scars under his rough fingertips; the caress was soothing and Severus let himself be held, eyes closed and unavoidably damp, the Mark dark and ugly on his forearm, exposed, like a sinister Muggle tattoo.

Lulled by Remus’s calm breath against his hair and the comforting touch of his loved one, Severus shifted in the embrace, facing the werewolf for the very first time since his turbulent arrival, downcast black eyes meeting honey gold under sandy brown eyelashes, and in a surge of overpowering vulnerability, he bumped his nose against the hollow of Lupin's cheek in an affectionate nuzzle, just exactly where his not quite unblemished skin met the reddish outline of a fairly fresh scar.

"I'll stay for Christmas tomorrow." Severus breathed quietly against Remus's neck, his voice raspy but steady, now that the last whispers of the Cruciatus had abandoned his drained body completely.

He felt, more than saw, Lupin’s grin as the werewolf mouthed those three, gratifying words against his hairline, and, smiling without restraint, he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is a verse from the poem "Echo Location" (from "Sensual Math") by Alice Fulton.


	2. Smoking obsidian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marauder's era.

It was cold up the Astronomy Tower as Remus climbed the final steps and shivered in his charcoal grey oversized greatcoat from the chilly mid-January air.

He stopped in the darkened circular gallery, lupine eyes scanning the room, searching, and sure enough, he glimpsed something glow in his peripheral vision.

Remus turned to watch Severus taking a drag from his lit cigarette, eyes lowered and long lashes casting dark shadows on his sharp cheekbones; he breathed in, then slowly breathed out.

Without waiting for the other boy to acknowledge him, he strode purposefully towards Snape and flopped down beside him with a sigh, thighs and shoulders touching in an unusual display of casual companionship.

“How the hell are you here for? I thought you said you had a Perfects meeting with McGonagall.” scoffed Severus, while Remus snatched the cigarette from the other boy's potion-stained fingers and took a healthy puff.

“I just managed to sneak away after she dismissed us all, no big deal. The others don't know where I am.” answered then Lupin, with a satisfied smoke-induced drawl.

"What about your stupid friends?" Severus sneered, leaning casually against Remus' shoulder to pick the fag from scarred, slightly warm fingers and inhaling again from the stub. "Does they know that you're up here again, and with me at that?"

Remus snorted, smoke running away from his nostrils and curling in the chilly air above his sleep-tousled hair, and with a flourish produced the crumpled Marauder's Map from an inner pocket of his big coat.

Severus sniggered, inhaling once more before passing the joint back to Remus: their fingertips brushed together, and the Slytherin boy shivered forcefully. 

Only then did Lupin notice how underdressed Snape was, wearing a cotton sweater that was a non-colour as if it had been washed too many times and the dyes had faded away, so different from his usual school attire that it contrasted nicely with his dark hair and eyes.

Shifting slightly against Severus's body, cigarette dangling from his closed lips, Remus shimmied out of his overcoat and placed it on Snape's bony cotton-clad shoulders: the Slytherin pulled the lapels more tightly against his chest, then took the dying cigarette from Lupin's mouth and turned to gaze at the bright constellations dotting the background of the night sky, but Remus’ eyes stayed on him.

“What?” hummed Snape after a couple of minutes, raising an eyebrow at Lupin's gaze still focused on him, a glimmer of something sweet twinkling in their golden depths.

Without replying, Remus lifted one hand to cup Severus' cheek and settled the other on his hip, drawing him closer. He kissed him tenderly, unrushed, lips pressing and gliding in feather-like strokes, a burst of flames heating up the chilled January air.

Forehead touching, they gently broke apart, and Severus let himself smile against Remus' lips, not even caring that the stub had burned his fingertips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think? Let me know, for I'm always utterly unsure of what I write☀️


	3. Unreal City, Under the brown fog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An oneiric sweet nothing just after the end of the First Wizarding War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shoot, I wrote something again!

Autumn 1982

Pensive people drifted over the crunchy gravel path like voiceless ghosts in their raincoats, still caught in the remnants of drowsiness that always comes with the punctuality of waking up for work, the shrill tune of Muggle clocks echoing still inside their cold and lonely ears.

The morning was a bright blue haunted by dismal moonshine-white clouds, the whole city stood still and grey.

The Botanical Garden had surrendered, at last, to the hand of autumn; the grass was pale and heavy with dew, the branches were clad in sparkling warm colours, like magical fireworks bursting free in a sky where the greenish Dark Mark would never appear again.

Severus's voice was a rumble of soft vowels and he was smiling, probably for the very first time since that last, painful goodbye on an early-Summer warmed Astronomy Tower, onyx-black eyes mellow and bright and the sharp line of his face creased with it, and it was making Remus giddy as it always did, and oh, how he had missed this.

He was in the Botanical Garden with Severus again, washed in the warm autumnal sun that lit up Snape's glossy black hair, as shiny and dark as a night sky, and there was Severus's smile matching his own exhilarated one, among the withering roses and the soft murmur of the golden leaves, the painful memories of all those bleak years of uncertainty and self-doubt spent on the opposite side of a desperate war evaporating in the impending London sunrise.

Lupin's hand slipped gently into Snape's, fingers falling into place as they belonged there entwined together, and the air turned liquid with the sound of Severus's rich laughter, warm chocolate the brand of Remus' liking, bright and free as the scarlet leaves that surrounded them with their hopeful colours, the melodious thrumming of their magic pulsing around their bodies, inside their souls.

Remus could taste Earl Grey, a hint of firewhiskey and burnt asphodel when Severus pulled him closer and kissed him, strong, sinewy arms around his quivering middle, soft raven hair under his scarred fingertips, white and pink, and the intense smell of sweet and damp stones, simmering Wolfsbane and treacle tart was all he could feel while breathing contentedly into Snape's eager mouth.

“I'm not letting you go again, not this time”, whispered Severus, both his newly polished black-nailed hands on Remus' blushing cheeks, delicate fingers streaked with black ink caressing the silver of scars that marred Remus' skin like highlights on a blank map, and Lupin smiled his broad, loving smile, all pearly-white teeth and gleaming golden-green eyes, and he felt Severus melt helplessly, once and for all.

No Dark Lord was rising, not anymore, no Dumbledore with twinkling eyes under half-moon spectacles meddling with their lives, foretelling the return of an evil ghost they both wanted to stay buried, no imminent, crazy battle where they would face each other as enemies, there was just Remus and Severus dancing slowly in the Botanical Garden to a song that spoke of peace and love lost and found again, in a circle of golden and red and orange leaves that fell and fluttered around them like dry, colourful confetti.

And the sun rose a bit higher above grey London city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title inspired by the third part of T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"


	4. Ferte in noctem animam meam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A peaceful night at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set sometime after book seven, after the reconstruction of Hogwarts and all the trials, like two or three years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Of course, both Severus and Remus are somewhat alive, and Severus, Deputy Headmaster, is still teaching Potions while Remus is the DADA teacher full time, finally.

Nights at Hogwarts were the most peaceful part of the entire schooling day, now that the ancient castle was standing proud and magnificent again, thrumming with ancestral magic and swarming with the ghosts of those poor souls who had died in the battle, and one wasn't on their established patrol duties.

Severus was bent over a boiling age-scorched cauldron whose content was a bright and bubbling bubble gum pink: He carefully dropped a last stem of dittany into the shimmering potion and watched as it turned a gentle hue of mauve, then reached for the short silver knife and stirred the elixir.

After wiping the blade across a spare rag he kept lying around, Snape surfaced from the warm cover of the suffocating fumes with a sigh and a muttered fire-extinguishing spell.

His back-up potions lab was still and scarcely lit, the last remnants of the fairy incense were burning and dying in a last feeble puff of smoke in the pot, and the solitary frame hanging on the north wall was empty.

He could glimpse the midnight stars from the only window in his quarters that didn't face the Black Lake, answer enough that he had worked late again, the sky and the tell-tale calm breathing of a sleeping Remus that came in soft waves from the bed on the opposite side of the room both.

It was one of those stretched-out nights that Severus referred as “lucky” when Edward Lupin – he adamantly refused to call him Teddy, as he already had an honest-to-Merlin name – was in the weekly expert care of Andromeda, miles away from the frenzy that was Hogwarts during mid-terms.

The werewolf was resting on the far edge of the huge four-poster bed, facing the stone wall on which a couple of Order of Merlin, one of them broken and mended with mundane sellotape, were limply dangling from their matching nails, his socked heels poking out of the discarded quilt that was draped over his long, scarred, naked legs like a silky serpentine vice.

Lupin looked impossibly thin and vulnerable, curled in on himself as if trying to keep away the damp chill of the dungeons, wearing a worn pair of Severus's discoloured boxer briefs and an old Weird Sisters baggy t-shirt, the hem slightly rolled up so that the Slytherin could see a criss-cross of scars on the other man's stomach and the paler, round-shaped silver of skin where the Killing Curse had hit him.

Remus' face was luckily relaxed, a rare occasion in which the nightmares had failed to creep up and torment his dreams, a cheek buried in the feathery dunes of the pillow, dishevelled hair and unkempt beard glowing golden in the lonely candlelight.

Watching him from afar in the tranquillity of sleep, a blush spread high on his sharper-than-ever cheekbones, Severus felt his heart burst unwittingly in his bony cage, aching pleasantly with unrestrained love and affection, finally free to feel and not controlled by either Voldemort or Dumbledore for the very first time since he mistakenly chose his fate the night he took the Mark.

In a fluid, measured motion, Snape put a lid on his resting potion and left his private work station, the heavy green socks on his feet shuffling silently on the cold stone floor as he inched closer to the bed, all the while discarding his dressing gown, which was left lying somewhere in his wake.

Remus sighed and snuggled closer to Snape's chest when the Potions Master nestled himself against him and threw an arm over his exposed waist, whispering a wandless spell so that he could untangle the bed sheets without waking the sleeping wizard.

Burying his long nose in the back of Lupin's neck, his stringy hair tickling his lips and nostrils, Severus let a hand slip under Remus’ shirt, basking in the warmth of the werewolf's skin, brushing his thumb over the wiry fur on his belly to feel the gentle rise and fall of Lupin's peaceful breath, the steady beating of his heart that kept telling Snape “I’m alive, alive, alive.”

It was the most satisfying feeling, a reassuring one, and Severus just closed his eyes and slid into sleep, the covers softly covering the two entwined men without a sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Nicholas Hooper's song "In Noctem", from The Half-Blood Prince soundtrack. It means " carry my soul into the night."


End file.
